Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad

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The Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad (C&SL) was a railway company in Lower Canada (now Québec ). Opened in 1836, the 26-kilometer-long colonial track (1676 mm) lay southeast of Montreal and was the first rail line in Canada . The successor company, Montreal and Champlain Railroad , founded in 1857 , became part of the Grand Trunk Railway in 1872 .

history

A group of Montreal businessmen led by brewery owner John Molson and banker Peter McGill founded C&SL in 1832. The aim was to connect the Saint Lawrence River and the Rivière Richelieu like a portage . This abbreviation was intended to facilitate freight traffic from Montreal via Lake Champlain and the Hudson River to New York . Two American surveyors determined the route. It was supposed to run from the town of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu to the small village of La Prairie (twelve kilometers south of Montreal on the south bank of the Saint Lawrence River).

Construction began in January 1835. The so-called colonial gauge of 5 feet and 6 inches (1676 mm) was chosen as the gauge; the rails were made of six inch wide pine logs connected together with iron plates and bolts (replaced with iron rails in the 1850s). The first locomotive, the Dorchester , came from Robert Stephenson's factory in Newcastle upon Tyne and was powered by burning wood. Test drives on the route took place at night in order to frighten as few residents as possible. The official opening took place on July 21, 1836, and regular operations began four days later.

Freight traffic did not develop as hoped, as river boaters felt the freight costs were too high, but passenger traffic exceeded all expectations. In 1851 the line was extended to Rouses Point in the US state of New York , and in 1852 to Saint-Lambert directly across from Montreal. The C&SL merged with the Montreal and New York Railroad to form the Montreal and Champlain Railroad (M&C) in 1857 . In 1864 the Grand Trunk Railway leased M&C, and in 1872 it took over the company. A year later the line was switched to standard gauge . Since 1923 the line has been owned by the Canadian National Railway , which still handles freight traffic on it.

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